


Slant of Sun

by BoxOnTheNile



Series: Dull Brown Walls [2]
Category: Gravity Falls, Rick and Morty
Genre: Aged-Up Pines Twins, F/M, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I forgot that one whoops, More ships that ill add when they become relevant, No editing we die like mne, Post canon Gravity Falls, Season 3 au for r&m, Trans Dipper Pines, i keep creating ships and making my mother proud, start with that one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-23 11:22:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12506232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoxOnTheNile/pseuds/BoxOnTheNile
Summary: Morty Smith and Mabel Pines sort of... banded together from mutual loneliness. At least, it started that way.But up in Oregon, an old enemy is stirring, and the zodiac needs a shooting star.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Holy shit i hate that i wrote this i hate that its 2am i hate me too
> 
> Main fic in the Dull Brown Walls series, probs gonna have some connected oneshots
> 
> Idk im tired and have work in five hours

Morty was failing classes. It wasn't a surprise, really. Between the divorce and Rick dragging him around at all hours of night and day, he didn't study much, but those months Rick was in prison had given him a taste of normalcy(sorta), and he decided that he wanted to graduate. 

The first time he brought Mabel over, the two spread color coded history notes and Algebra textbooks across the kitchen table and dredged through useless busywork for hours, and neither of them even really acknowledged the rest of the Smith-Sanchez household. 

It became a regular thing. Every Tuesday and Thursday, Mabel was at their house. She never stayed for dinner, just followed Morty into the kitchen. Sometimes, she'd glance to side as though checking for someone who wasn’t there.  
\--

“Out.”

Mabel looked away from Morty’s messy charts of chemical bonding on the whiteboard to the man in the garage doorway. In the weeks she'd been studying with Morty, Rick had never spoken a word to her, unlike Summer’s casual questions about school or Beth’s polite but awkward attempts to get to know her. Now, though, the old man was glaring at her, and her gaze dropped to her lap. 

Morty saw all this, and rounded on his grandfather. “Jeez, Rick, she didn't touch anything. Mabel’s just helping me with science.”

“Okay, first, Mabel is a stupid name for anyone born after 1948, and, sec-second, there's a literal fucking scientist in the house for that.”

“Well, damn, Rick,” Morty snapped back, frowning. “Wish- wish I knew where he was two weeks ago when I needed help in Chemistry.” His pale, skinny hand darted into Mabel’s view to grab her own and pull her to her feet. “C’mon.” 

He led her back into the house, where they had abandoned their books twenty minutes earlier when both realized they needed to see what they were learning in color instead of the black on the pages. 

“I didn't mean to get you in trouble,” Mabel apologized.

“He's being a, a real dick,” Morty said. “Ugh, and were starting to feel better.”

Mabel smiled at him. Morty knew that the Federation, when it was there, had noticed “Mason Pines was receiving schooling below his recommended intensity,” and now Mabel had to finish high school without her twin. She was lonely, the whole school knew, and when Rick was gone, Morty had been lonely too.

“It's okay,” she said. “I mean, not really, but… I should call Dipper anyway.” She carefully packed her notes away. “See you in history tomorrow.”

Morty saw her out the door before heading back to the garage, where Rick was staring disdainfully at their diagrams.

“What the fuck is your problem?”

Rick turned that look to him. “She's here all, all the time, Morty. Get rid of one idiot, bring in another?”

“So I can't have friends now?” Morty gestured to the garage at large. “I decide I want a life that _doesn't_ involve getting shot at all the time but, but Rick Sanchez can't, he can't be having that! No, Rick Sanchez needs his idiot to hide his brainwaves! Disposable Mortys, right?”

Rick blinked, slowly. “Holy shit, you wanna fuck her.”

“What?” 

The grin that one word caused was borderline manic. “Holy shit, you wanna fuck her and _you don't even realize_.”

At that point, Morty decided discretion was the better part of valor and fled.  
\--

He kept turning Rick’s words over in his head. Did he want to sleep with Mabel? 

Once, she'd been a background character in Morty's life. He had classes with her, but never really spoke with her. Besides, she seemed nearly inseparable from her twin. 

But Mason Pines was the school's prodigy child, and the Federation decided he was too smart for high school. So they shifted him on and up, making it a big announcement(that coincidentally outed him,seriously, fuck the Federation).

Without her brother, Mabel seemed as lost as Morty felt without Rick. So he approached her with some bullshit excuse about homework help. 

But did he want to sleep with her?

Honestly, maybe a little. She was pretty in a nontraditional way, with her big doe eyes and the uneven darker patch of skin across her nose and-

Holy shit yeah he probably wanted sex with Mabel Pines. Probably multiple times.

But he also kinda wanted to take her to get ice cream and see movies. Maybe she would bring the knitting she'd mentioned a few times and Morty could see how loops of yarn became the sweaters she loved so much.

He hated when Rick was right. 

He told Rick that, loudly, over dinner half an hour later. 

“What's he right about this time?” Summer asked.

“Everything, generally,” Rick told her, “but in this case specifically, I knew Morty had the hots for his little study buddy.”

“You have a crush on the Pines twin?” Summer said, a grin creeping onto her face. 

“The what now?” Rick started, but Morty spoke over him. 

“Yeah, fine, whatever, so I like Mabel Pines, what the fuck do you want from me?”

“Isn't Pines the name of the girl-”

“Boy,” Morty cut his mother off. “Mabel’s twin is a boy. Just because the Federation was transphobic pieces of garbage doesn't mean, doesn’t mean we get to be. But, yes, Dipper is the boy the Federation graduated early.”

“Who named these children?” Rick muttered, something like sarcasm in his tone. 

“Mason,” Morty corrected himself, a little late. “Dipper’s the nickname Mabel uses. Just, I just got used to hearing that, I guess.”

“I don't see what the big deal is,” Summer said. “Just ask her out. She seems pretty cool, and the worst she can do is say no. Here,” and she shoved her hand in Morty’s back pocket, ignoring his indignant shriek, and palmed his phone. “Just pull up her number and- you put an emoji in her contact name?” Summer held the phone away from Morty’s grasping hands and started typing.

“She put an emoji in her contact name. Said the shooting star was ‘her brand’ or something.”

“That’s adorable. How's this sound, then? _Hey shooting star, wanna do something not homework related like see a movie and grab dinner?_ ”

Morty finally gave up on retrieving his phone and sulked over his plate. “Fine, I guess.”

The phone chimed a notification almost immediately, and Rick took the phone from Summer. “She says as long as the food is kosher. Is that why she never eats here? She's Jewish?” 

“She gave me a Hanukkah gift a few months ago, so I'm gonna say yes. Can I have my phone back?”

“No, I’m scrolling through your text history. There's lit-literally dozens of texts in a row that're the pig emoji, preceded with a photo of an actual pig. Jesus, does she own a motherfucking mini pig?”

“Waddles, his name is Waddles.” Morty looked, pleading, towards Beth, but she just shrugged. “I hate all of you.”  
\--

 _sent from - >_ Lyra☄  
**ok but lookit this**  
_screenshot74.jpeg_

 _sent from - >_ Ursa Major  
**He's asking you out. Do you not want to?**

 _sent from - >_ Lyra☄  
**yes? no? idk? mortys gr8 and yeeeeeaahh ive thought about it but what if????? gideon sitch??????**

 _sent from - >_ Ursa Major  
**Then I come back to Piedmont long enough to see you beat him up. He's not Gideon, Mabes. He can't summon demons or keep you in a jar.**

 _sent from - >_ Lyra☄  
**thanks bro. ur right. ok yeah lets do this.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hc mabel also has a constellation birthmark and its Lyra, the harp


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was _fun_

The two are still giggling when they get to the restaurant.

“That had to be _the_ singular dumbest thing I’ve ever seen,” Mabel said, leaning heavily against Morty as she tried to catch her breath, “and I watched Duck-tective when I was younger.”

“Plus the racist stereotyping was so over the top it was painful,” Morty agreed. They pulled themselves together long enough to place an order, but after, Mabel whispered “Mexican Armada” under her breath and they both lost it again. 

Mabel took a few deep breaths to get herself under control. “Okay, okay, serious time. I have a serious question.” Her fingers nervously toyed with the napkin wrapped around her cutlery. “Was this two friends hanging out, or was it a date?”

Morty sobered quickly. “Well, um, it- it could be either?”

“Okay, but what were you thinking it was when you texted?”

Morty kept his eyes fixed to the tabletop. “A… A date. I was hoping.”

Mabel nodded. “Alright. Good.”

Morty met her gaze. “Good?”

“Well, yeah.” A shy smile spread across Mabel’s face. “I was kinda hoping it was a date, too. Unless you’re super creepy and keep secret photos of me.”

“What, no, what the fuck?”

“Oh maaaaaan,” Mabel drawled, holding the ‘a’ for several seconds. “I’ve had some, some really creepy suitors.”

“Do I have to defeat them Scott Pilgrim style?”

“I’ve never seen that movie.”

“I’ve seen an alternate dimension version,” Morty admitted, and Mabel stopped picking at her napkin. 

“A what version?”

Oh shit. “Well, um, you see… Rick invented a portal gun? And- and it goes everwhere in the universe. The Muliverse. Whichever.”

“And it’s stable?” Mabel’s eyes were glittering with something like wonder. “My uncle has been, um, experimenting with Multidimentional Theory but all of his, uh, models show the portals as unstable and dangerous.”

The waitress appeared for a moment to set their plates down, but neither of them were really paying attention.

“Well, the portals them-themselves are safe, but the places they go aren’t always.”

“Well, obviously.” Mabel waved her hand in the air dismissively. “But they don’t make, for example, permanent rifts in reality?”

“No?”

She planted her hands on the table and leaned in really close to Morty’s face. “Can we go?”  
\--

“Absolutely not.”

“What?” Morty asked while Mabel booed in the background. She was very deliberately _not quite_ through the doorway, as she was technically ‘banned’ from the garage.

“I did not invent interdimensional travel so you could impress your girlfriend.” Mabel booed louder. “Shut the fuck up, Pines. Shit, right, question for you.”

“I’ll answer it if you show me the portal gun,” Mabel said, “otherwise I will make fart noises every time you start to ask.”

“That almost answers it,” Rick muttered. “You know what? Fuck it.” He pulled out the portal gun. “Get in here.”

Mabel squealed in excitement and hopped over the threshold. She clasped her hands at the small of her back. “I will definately, one hundred percent touch it otherwise,” she explained, bouncing excitedly on her toes. “Holy cow, this is so cool. What’s your question?”

“Are you related to Stanley and Stanford Pines.”

Mabel’s frantic bouncing stilled. Slowly, she rocked from her toes back onto her heels. “An interesting question, and I promised an answer, but I want to know why it’s important.”

“I met Stanford Pines fifteen years ago, in-”

“-In another dimension, yeah.” Mabel’s face was carefully blank, a skill she’d perfected while the Federation was still on Earth. 

“Told me he was stuck and then refused my help like an asshole.”

Mabel’s whole body relaxed, and Morty noticed just how much she’d tensed before, like an animal ready to run. “Grunkle Ford is an asshole, it’s part of his charm. He’s back and safe, now. For the past three years.”

“Huh.” Rick turned back to the workbench. “He really did fix it.” When it was obvious he was done speaking to them, Morty sighed and gestured back to the door. Mabel neatly interlaced their fingers and let him lead her out.

“Sorry it didn’t pan out,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. “You were so excited, too.”

“Sorry what didn’t pan out?” Mabel asked, eyes wise and innocent as she pulled the portal gun from her sweater pocket. “Maybe now is a good time to tell you my uncle is a professional conman and kleptomaniac. And that he taught me. All my sweaters have places for hiding things.” She offered him the portal gun, grinning. “You’re the expert.”

Morty stared at it for a long moment, before, “Do you want to get the best ice cream in the universe?”

“Sounds like the perfect ending to a first date to me!”

It turned out the best ice cream parlor in the universe doesn’t take American currency, so they ended up bailing without paying, weaving through alien streets with their ill-gotten cones melting in their hands and the portal gun back in Mabel’s sweater.

After three blocks, Morty pulled her to a stop, realizing he was still holding her hand. “Okay, I think, I think we lost them. Actually, I’m not sure they were ever chasing us, but we lost them. And I have a couple questions now?”

Mabel was suddenly very interested in her ice cream. “Yeah. Yeah we shouldn’t go into a relationship with secrets and I kinda lied to you immediately.”

“I understand why.” Morty ducked into a nearby alley and sat, back to the wall, using their still-joined hands to coax her down with him. “I get the feeling you’re used to lying about that, and I just got caught up in a, a habit or something.” He quickly licked up dripping ice cream before it reached his hand. “So, uh, not models?”

“Not models,” Mabel affirmed. “Grunkle Ford built a working prototype, like, thirty years ago, but.. It backfired. He got stranded. His brother, Grunkle Stan, managed to- to fix it, using his notes, but Grunkle Ford is-”

“-An asshole?” Morty interrupted. 

Mabel snorted, edges of her mouth quirking up for a brief moment. “I was gonna say paranoid. He put his notes in three different journals and hid all three of them in different places. So it took until three years ago to actually get it working. That summer was… I’m not ready to talk about it.” Her hand squeezed Morty’s hard for a moment. “But something… something really bad happened, and it was all my fault.”

Morty heard the way her voice broke softly at the end and turned to look at her, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. For a moment, she seemed so small, the way she had in the school library those months ago. Like she was missing a piece of herself, or like she couldn’t…

Like she couldn’t stand to be alone with herself.

Morty’s ice cream dropped the ground as he kissed her there, in a dirty alleyway on an alien planet. The kiss was chaste and so, so careful, but Mabel finally untangled their hands to pull him closer until he was pressing her softly against the wall at her back. 

The tears surprised him. Mabel broke the kiss to hurriedly wipe at her cheeks, sniffling softly. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I ruined it.”

“I was afraid _I_ ruined it,” Morty told her. “I didn’t really ask but- but you looked so upset? So I just…”

“I can appreciate spontaneity.” She inhaled deeply through her nose, then blew out her mouth. “Okay. We should probably get home, huh? I need to own up to stealing this.” She pulled the portal gun from her sweater and handed it over. 

“We borrowed it, but yeah, w-we should give it back.”

Morty shot the portal onto the wall across from them, and they stepped through into the Smith/Sanchez garage.

Immediately, a hand fastened onto Mabel’s sweater and she yelped, twisted, and socked Rick in the face. He staggered back, swearing and clutching his nose. “Have fun?” he asked dryly.

“A lot,” Morty said, just as icy.

“I don’t know whether to be impressed or just kill you,” Rick said, glaring. “Only person to ever steal from me like that was your uncle.”

“He taught me.” Her voice was still a little off from crying earlier. “Taught me that left hook, too.”

There were a tense few seconds, then Rick grinned wickedly. “You’re fucking just like Lee. I could use that.”

“You could try,” Mabel answered, almost managing to sound airy. The unaffected feeling came across regardless. “I need to get home and call Dipper, he’s been texting me almost nonstop tonight.” She pressed a kiss of the tip of Morty’s nose. “I had fun, we should steal alien ice cream more often.” And she was gone, out the open garage door and down the street.

“Pines are always trouble,” Rick said as she turned the corner at the end of the block. “But they make things interesting.”

“Yeah,” Morty agreed. “She looked really good in those jeans, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ::sighs:: welp, he is still a Morty
> 
> Mabel still has a lot of guilt over Weirdmaggedon that will probably be addressed. ~~it will~~
> 
> ~~stanchez???~~


End file.
